The main individual rift basins that make up the rift system, from south to north, are the Weihe, Sanmenxia, Yuncheng, Linfen, Taiyuan, Xinding and Datong basins.
Weihe Basin The west–east trending Weihe Basin has a mainly half-graben geometry, thickening southwards into the large normal faults that form the boundary on its southern side with the mountains of the Qinling orogenic belt. The two main faults are the North Qinling Fault, which runs from the western end of the basin to just beyond
Xi'an. To the east the main basin-bounding fault steps to the north in the form of the Huashan Fault, which continues eastward to near
Lingbao, where it forms the southern boundary to the Sanmenxia Basin. The maximum thickness of Cenozoic sedimentary fill in the basin is estimated to be in the range . The oldest unit is thought to be of
Late Eocene age, dating the onset of rifting in this basin to the Eocene. The sequence consists of continental clastic
sedimentary rocks, deposited in
alluvial,
fluvial and
lacustrine sedimentary environments.
Sanmenxia Basin The Sanmenxia Basin trends WSW–ENE and lies between the Qinling orogenic belt to the south and the
Zhongtiao Mountains to the north. The basin is long and wide, with a maximum fill of about . It is continuous with the Weihe Basin to the west. Tectonically it is bound to the south by the Sanmenxia-Lingbao Fault, which links to the eastern segment of the Huashan Fault, and to the north by a fault along the southern edge of the Zhongtiao range, the South Zhongtiaoshan Fault.
Yuncheng Basin This SW–NE trending basin is a strongly asymmetric half-graben with southeastward thickening into the large normal fault along the northwestern side of the Zhongtiao range, the North Zhongtiaoshan Fault. It contains a maximum thickness of over of sedimentary rocks, which extend back in age to the Late Miocene. The sequence thins northwards to a few hundred metres, with pre-Cenozoic basement rock locally exposed in the E'mei highlands.
Linfen Basin The Linfen Basin lies to the north of the Yuncheng Basin, from which it is separated by the E'mei highlands. It has the opposite polarity, that is the boundary fault that controls the half-graben, the Louyunshan Fault, in this case lies on the northwest side of the basin, against the Luoyunshan range. The maximum thickness of the upper Miocene to recent sedimentary fill is in the range . It is bounded to the northwest by the Jiaocheng Fault and the southeast by the Taigu Fault.
Xinding Basin Also known as the Xinzhou–Dingxian Basin, this SW–NE trending half-graben has its main faulted boundary on its southeastern margin as the Xizhoushan Fault against the Xizhouan range. The sedimentary fill of this basin reaches a maximum of about . Other smaller basins form part of the northern sector of the rift system south and east of the Datong Basin. These include the Yangyuan Basin (controlled by the Liulengshan Fault), the Hunyuan Basin (controlled by the Hengshan Fault), the Yu-Guang Basin (controlled by the South Yu-Guang Basin Fault) and the Lingqiu Basin (controlled by the Taibaiweishan Fault), all of which have a half-graben geometry. ==Seismicity==